Sacred Waters

Description

Orphaned as a child and widowed at thirteen, Sita has always known the shame of being born female in Indian society. Her life constrained and shaped by the men around her, she could not be more different from her daughter, Amita, a headstrong university professor determined to live life on her own terms. While trying to unravel the mysteries in her mother's past, Amita encounters a traumatic event that leads her down the path of self-discovery. Unfolding simultaneously, their stories are set against the dramatic sweep of India's anti-colonial struggle in the 1940s, and move between past and present, from rural India to the chaotic Burmese battlefront where Sita experiences life as a recruit in the Indian National Army, to modern-day Singapore. Richly layered and beautifully evocative, the novel is a compelling exploration of two women's struggle to assert themselves in male-dominated societies of both the past and the present.

Meira Chand is of Indian-Swiss parentage and was born and educated in London. She has lived for many years in Japan, and also in India. In 1997 she moved to Singapore, and is now a citizen of the country. Her multi-cultural heritage is reflected in her many novels